The Power and the Glory by Grace MacGowan Cooke

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"You-all asked me to let ye go through and find that nickel ore, and yebrung it out in a pasteboard box; but this here is what it was in on theday your Uncle Pros fetched hit here, and I thought maybe you'd take ainterest in having the handkercher that your fortune come down themountains in."

"Pap, he's gone," the poor woman went on tremulously, "an' the evil whathe done--or wanted to do--is a thing that I reckon you can afford toforget. You're a mighty happy woman, Johnnie Consadine; the Lord knowsyou deserve to be."

She stood looking after the girl as she went out into the twilit street.Johnnie was dressed as she chose now, not as she must, and her clothingshowed itself to be of the best. Anything that might be had in Wautagawas within her means; and the tall, graceful figure passing so quietlydown the street would never have been taken for other than a member ofwhat we are learning to call the "leisure class." When the shadows atthe end of the block swallowed her up, Mavity turned, wiping her eyes,and addressed herself to her tasks.

"I reckon Lou would 'a' been just like that if she'd 'a' lived," shesaid to Mandy Meacham, with the tender fatuity of mothers. "Johnnieseems like a daughter to me--an' I know in my soul no daughter could bekinder. Look at her makin' me keep every cent Pap had in the bank, whenLaurelly could have claimed it all and kep' it."

"Yes, an' addin' somethin' to it," put in Mandy. "I do love 'emboth--Johnnie an' Deanie. Ef I ever was so fortunate as to get a man andbe wedded and have chaps o' my own, I know mighty well and good Icouldn't love any one of 'em any better than I do Deanie. An' yetJohnnie's quare. I always will say that Johnnie Consadine is quare. Whatin the nation does she want to go chasin' off to Yurrup for, when she'sgot everything that heart could desire or mind think of right here inCottonville?"

That same question was being put even more searchingly to Johnnie bysomebody else at the instant when Mandy enunciated it. She had foundGray waiting for her at the gate of her home.

"Let's walk here a little while before we go in," he suggested. "I wentup to the house and found you were out. The air is delightful, and I'vegot something I want to say to you."

He had put his arm under hers, and they strolled together down the longwalk that led to the front of the lawn. The evening air was pure andkeen, tingling with the breath of the wakening season.

"Sweetheart," Gray broke out suddenly, "I've been thinking day and nightsince we last talked together about this year abroad that you'replanning. I certainly don't want to put my preferences before yours. Ionly want to be very sure that I know what your real preferences are,"and he turned and searched her face with a pair of ardent eyes.

"I think I ought to go," the girl said in a very low voice, her headdrooped, her own eyes bent toward the path at her feet.

"Why?" whispered her lover.

"I--oh, Gray--you know. If we should ever be married--well, then," inanswer to a swift, impatient exclamation, "when we are married, if youshould show that you were ashamed of me--I think it would kill me. No,don't say there's not any danger. You might have plenty of reason. AndI--I want to be safe, Gray--safe, if I can."

Gray regarded the beautiful, anxious face long and thoughtfully. Yes, ofcourse it was possible for her to feel that way. Assurance was so deepand perfect in his own heart, that he had not reflected what it mightlack in hers.

"Dear girl," he said, pausing and making her look at him, "how littleyou do know of me, after all! Do I care so much for what people say?Aren't you always having to reprove me because I so persistently likewhat I like, without reference to the opinions of the world? Besides,you're a beauty," with tender brusqueness, "and a charmer that stealsthe hearts of men. If you don't know all this, it isn't from lack oftelling. Moreover, I can keep on informing you. A year of Europeantravel could not make you any more beautiful, Johnnie--or sweeter. Youmay not believe me, but there's little the 'European capitals' could addto your native bearing--you must have learned that simple dignity fromthese mountains of yours. Of course, if you wanted to go for pleasure--"His head a little on one side, he regarded her with a tender,half-quizzical smile, hoping he had sounded the note that would bringhim swift surrender.

"It isn't altogether for myself--there are the others," Johnnie toldhim, lifting honest eyes to his in the dim moonlight. "They're all I hadin the world, Gray, till you came into my life, and I must keep my own.I belong to a people who never give up anything they love."

Stoddard dropped an arm about his beloved, and turned her that she mightface the windows of the house behind them, bending to set his cheekagainst hers and direct her gaze.

"Look there," he whispered, laughingly.

She looked and saw her mother, clad in such wear as Laurella's tastecould select and Laurella's beauty make effective. The slight, darklittle woman was coming in from the dining room with her children allabout her, a noble group.

"Your mother is much more the fine lady than you'll ever be, JohnnieStoddard," Gray said, giving her the name that always brought the bloodto the girl's cheek and made her dumb before him. "You know your UnclePros and I are warmly attached to each other.

"What is it you'd be waiting for, girl? Why, Johnnie, a man has just solong to live on this earth, and the years in which he has loved are theonly years that count--would you be throwing one of these away? Ayear--twelve months--three hundred and sixty-five days--cast to thevoid. You reckless creature!"

He cupped his hands about her beautiful, fair face and lifted it,studying it.

"Johnnie--Johnnie--Johnnie Stoddard; the one woman out of all the worldfor me," he murmured, his deep voice dropping to a wooing cadence. "Icouldn't love you better--I shall never love you less. Don't let usfoolishly throw away a year out of the days which will be vouchsafed ustogether. Don't do it, darling--it's folly."

Hard-pressed, Johnnie made only a sort of inarticulate response.

"Come, love, sit a moment with me, here," pleaded Gray, indicating asmall bench hidden among the evergreens and shrubs at the end of thepath. "Sit down, and let's reason this thing out."

"It is," he told her, in that deep, masterful tone which, like a truewoman, she both loved and dreaded. "It's the height of reasonableness.Why, dear, the great primal reason of all things speaks through me. AndI won't let you throw away a year of our love. Johnnie, it isn't asthough we'd been neighbours, and grown up side by side. I came from theends of the earth to find you, darling--and I knew my own as soon asI saw you."

He put out his arms and gathered her into a close embrace.

For a space they rested so, murmuring question and reply, checked oranswered by swift, sweet kisses.

"The first time I ever saw you, love...."

"Oh, in thoze dusty old shoes and a sunbonnet! Could you love me then,Gray?"

"The same as at this moment, sweetheart. Shoes and sunbonnets--I'mashamed of you now, Johnnie, in earnest. What do such things matter?"

"And that morning on the mountain, when we got the moccasin flowers,"the girl's voice took up the theme. "I--it was sweet to be with you--andbitter, too. I could not dream then that you were for me. Andafterward--the long, black, dreadful time when you seemed so utterlylost to me--"

At the mention of those months, Gray stopped her words with a kiss.

"Mine," he whispered with his lips against hers, "Out of all theworld--mine."